Outfitting your construction company with its own affordable accounting software enables you to save on the cost of hiring an outside accountant to manage your books. Although several solutions exist, a select few titles consistently place at or near the top of reputable lists of the best free or low-cost small business accounting software. These titles include GnuCash, FreshBooks, GoDaddy Online Bookkeeping and TurboCash.

GnuCash

GnuCash is free, open-source accounting software designed for personal and small-business use. Tech Radar included it on its 2013 list of best free accounting software. If your construction company brings in building materials from overseas, GnuCash has support for multiple currencies, which can simplify the invoicing process. Additional features of GnuCash include scheduled transactions, double-entry accounting, a check-book-style register, reporting and graphing capabilities, stock, bond and mutual fund account support, transaction matching, HBCI, OFX and QIF file import, and the ability to print checks to pay your construction company's employees, suppliers and contractors. GnuCash is freely available for use under the GNU general purpose license.

FreshBooks

FreshBooks is cloud-based accounting software that enables your construction company to access and edit its books from computers and mobile devices anywhere there's an Internet connection. If you're at a work site, for example, and need to verify an invoice for construction materials, you can use your smartphone or tablet to load that invoice right at the work site rather than having to wait to return to your office to load it on your computer. PC Mag awarded FreshBooks its Editor's Choice award and included it on its list of best free small business accounting software. Additional features of FreshBooks include automatic backups, online bill payments, expense importing and exporting, online invoicing, late payment reminders, PDF and image receipt attachments, team time sheets and reporting. FreshBooks is available as a 30-day free trial, after which monthly packages start around $20.

GoDaddy Online Bookkeeping

GoDaddy Online Bookkeeping, formerly known as Outright, is online tax software designed for small businesses. Like FreshBooks, GoDaddy Online Bookkeeping landed on PC Mag's list of best small business accounting software. The software's features include financial data importing, report and invoice creation, tax worksheets and nightly data importing from your bank and credit-card accounts. Because construction businesses file taxes differently depending on the areas in which they operate, GoDaddy Online Bookkeeping's ability to automatically categorize transactions into IRS-approved categories can simplify the process of filing taxes during tax season. GoDaddy Online Bookkeeping is free to try for 60 days, after which it costs $10 per month.

TurboCash

TurboCash is free, open-source accounting software for small businesses. Tech Radar placed TurboCash at the top of its 2013 list of best free accounting software. Features of TurboCash include invoicing, stock management, VAT accounting, income and balance sheet statements, multiple user support, general ledger, example books and a vibrant online community of active users on which you can depend for free help. The demands of the construction industry and its boom and bust nature occasionally means relying on temporary foreign or migrant labor. TurboCash is available in 25 languages, which means it can print documents in Spanish, for example. It also enables your construction company to more easily conduct business with overseas suppliers and clients.

About the Author

Andrew Tennyson has been writing about culture, technology, health and a variety of other subjects since 2003. He has been published in The Gazette, DTR and ZCom. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in history and a Master of Fine Arts in writing.